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Mass. schoolteacher named Honorary Bat Girl

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By Jack Etkin and Adam Berry
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MLB.com |

DENVER -- Lisa Forte-Doyle was selected as the winner for the Yankees in the 2013 Honorary Bat Girl Contest that recognizes baseball fans who have been affected by breast cancer and have shown a commitment to eradicating the disease. One winner is chosen for each of the 30 Major League Baseball teams and will be honored this Sunday on Mother's Day.

Since the Yankees are not home on Mother's Day, Forte-Doyle, an English teacher in Chatham High School in Chatham, Mass., will be honored at a Yankees home game later this month.

On the final day of classes in 2010, Forte-Doyle was cleaning her classroom when she received a call from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, informing her that the lump she had discovered in her breast was malignant and she had breast cancer. "I was unsure of my future and broke down in tears," Forte-Doyle wrote in her submission to the contest. "I was contemplating how I would tell my two sons, who were in high school and seventh grade at the time."

That winter she endured eight weeks of chemotherapy, six weeks of radiation treatment daily and a mastectomy. Forte-Doyle was born and raised on the Grand Concourse, mere blocks from Yankee Stadium, and it was there she first told her brother of her diagnosis. "It is my second home, and the Yankees are my second family," Forte-Doyle wrote, adding that if chosen as the Yankees Honorary Bat Girl, she would dedicate the honor to her 93-year-old mother, who was also born and raised in New York and lives on Cape Cod.

"She is the greatest Yankees fan I know," Forte-Doyle wrote. "She saw Ruth and Gehrig play in the old stadium, now I would love for her to see me on the field in the new one." Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia was part of a six-person judging panel that helped select the winner for each Major League club along with fan votes.

Jack Etkin is a contributor to MLB.com. Adam Berry is a reporter for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter at @adamdberry. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.